September 07, 2005

First Weekly Meal Plan

by flowermama

Sometimes when people hear I am vegan they ask, "What do you eat?" Well, here are some things our family eats. ;) This is the first time I've ever written down a full week of meals like this in advance. I wrote the list out at the end of last week, and I have been tweaking it as necessary. I am going to try write out weekly meal plans for at least four weeks.

I know there are many areas we need to improve on, one being that we need to eat less soy, so hopefully writing it down will help. Also, hopefully our meal plans might be helpful to someone reading this!

potato pie - layer tvp (flavored with vegetarian beef flavored broth powder and garlic powder, and a little olive oil added) on bottom, corn in the middle, sweet potatoes and regular potatoes mashed together and spread on top (EB and plain rice milk mixed in with the potatoes)

lettuce salad

applesauce

2nd Snack

tortilla chips with salsa

leftover bean salad

avocado

raisins and dried cranberries

Dinner

brown rice with Earth Balance and Liquid Aminos

sliced pears

Wednesday

Breakfast

leftover brown rice with almond milk, maple syup, and cinnamon added (eaten like cereal), or brown rice with EB and LA (may drink a cup of almond milk if not poured over on rice)

sliced apples

First Snack

leftover things from Sunday -- cut up leftover potatoes and tofu pups, mixed them together, and warmed them on the stove in olive oil; used rest of Seed bread with peanut butter, etc., on top; used two hot dog buns and put Vegenaise and soy cheese slices on them.

Lunch

enchilladas (easy to make - jarred spaghetti sauce on bottom, six corn tortillas in next layer, then crumbled soft tofu mixed with vegetarian chicken flavoring in the next layer, then six more corn tortillas, then spaghetti sauce on top) with soy sour cream available for those who like to add that on top

Moving towards more structure at mealtime...

by flowermama

I'm a huge procrastinator, a messie, and a space case (at times), and to be organized is one of my biggest dreams. This week I feel, God-willing, that I have taken two steps in that direction. The first step is that, with the support of my husband and our children, we have begun to eat our meals at certain times during the day (our baby can nurse whenever he needs to, though, of course!
). The second step is the creation of a weekly meal plan. I started writing it at the end of last week, began following it on Sunday, and have been tweaking it this week as necessary.

We are finding both of these things to be very helpful for our family. Planning ahead helps avoid the frustration that can come with waiting until the last minute to decide what to eat (duh ;)). Also, it's helpful to be able to tell the family what we are going to eat, and when. The plan is helping us eat a larger variety of foods (there is less temptation for me to pull a box of cold cereal out of the cupboard too often *blush*), and, eventually, I think it will save us money, and it will make it easier for us to add even more variety to our diet. And I feel that I am better meeting my kids' needs since they are saying "I'm hungry!" far less often this week than they had been, and usually it's close to mealtime when they do.